Thought! cries W. What does it mean to think? Why can't we think? Why are we so singularly incapable of thinking? We've cultivate the external signs of thinking, W. says. We can do good impressions of thinkers, W. says, but weren't not thinkers! We've failed at the level of thought!
He knows they're out there, W. says, real thinkers. He knows how natural it is for them, how they glide through the milieu of thinking like a whale through deep water. it's effortless! it's as natural as breathing! they're used to thought, they're fully confident of their ability to think, which might as well be God-given.
They can't help it! They couldn't do otherwise! Thought is their element, their milieu, W. says, just as idiocy is our element and our milieu. They are virtuosos of thinking just as we are virtuosos of idiocy. Do you think they envy us as we envy them? Do you think they even know of the existence of idiocy? They don't know of it and they don't believe in it. They don't need to. Thought is not the absence of idiocy, although idiocy is the absence of thought.
W. and I remember our leaders. Do you think they had a sense of our idiocy? Was it real for them? Did it confuse or confound them? Did it prevent them from thinking? Not at all. Not for a moment. We bothered them, there was no question of that.
Do you remember how he spoke?, of the first leader. His seriousness? He wasn't swayed by us. Our idiocy was annulled. Just for a moment, we were quiet. Just for a moment, idiocy was interrupted and we were calmed. It was marvellous, W. said.
And our second leader. Do you remember what he told us? How he'd dropped out of college. How he'd worked as a pastry chef. How he'd taken up boxing - and all in the name of thought. All because he felt himself unworthy of thought, and tried to turn away from it, but there it was nonetheless: thought. There it was, waiting for him, the most natural thing in the world: the capacity to think.
There was no presumptiousness about him, we both agree. Thought was natural to him, it didn't surprise him and nor did it give him any sense of distinction. He was just like us, we agree, except that he could think. Which means he wasn't at all like us, really.
And our third Leader, perhaps the greatest of them all! Do you remember how quiet she was? Do you remember how silent the room became, and how we leaned in to listen more closely?
We thought were party to something, we remember. We thought we were in on a Secret, that now, at last, thinking would be here, in person. We though we would be par with it, the emergence of a thought. It was terribly flattering. We were, for once, to be the occasion of thought, rather than its obstacle. Thought had been very close to us that afternoon, hadn't it? Maybe we even believed we could think, which is the greatest illusion.